Newsgroup name conflict?

robin_listas · October 4, 2011, 2:13am

I just got this in the warning log, when fetching the forum via nntp:


> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto

Or, in more detail:



> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:01 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  config: debugmode is 1
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:01 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  config: maxage is 0
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:01 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  config: postings have max. 500000 bytes
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:01 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  config: timeout_long is 30 days
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:01 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  config: allow_8bit_headers is 1
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:04 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  leafnode 1.11.8: verbosity level is 1, debugmode is 1
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:04 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  try_lock(timeout=5), fqdn="Telcontar.valinor"
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:04 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Last LIST done 7776006 seconds ago: LIST
> <7.5> 2011-10-04 01:38:04 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Active has not been fetched completely in previous run
> <7.5> 2011-10-04 01:38:04 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  or has never been fetched, forcing active fetch.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  forums.novell.com: connected to 130.57.5.50:119, reply: 200
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  >MODE READER
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  forums.novell.com: 0 articles posted.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  >DATE
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  <111 20111003233805
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  check_date: forums.novell.com: server time 1317685085, our time 1317685085
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  forums.novell.com: getting all newsgroups (debug: active: nil, forceactive: true)
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:05 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  >LIST
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  <215 NewsGroups Follow
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 01:38:07 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  forums.novell.com: reading server info from /var/spool/news/leaf.node/forums.novell.com
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:07 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  >GROUP opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:07 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  <211 17945 2 17980 opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 01:38:07 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless: no new articles
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 01:38:07 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  >GROUP opensuse.org.help.tumbleweed

Duplicate group?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 4, 2011, 2:23am

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:13:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> I just got this in the warning log, when fetching the forum via nntp:
>
>


>> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name
>> conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto <7.3>
>> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name
>> conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
>

I don’t see this error when I list the newsgroups on the server out with
my perl script:

Could it be an issue with your fetchnews config?

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

robin_listas · October 4, 2011, 3:03am

On 2011-10-04 02:23, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:13:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> I don’t see this error when I list the newsgroups on the server out with
> my perl script:
>
> Could it be an issue with your fetchnews config?

Could be, but I haven’t changed it in months, and it is the only such error
in my logs. Huh, no, I see some more instances:


> Telcontar:~ # grep "Newsgroup name conflict"  /var/log/news/news.err
> Oct  8 14:33:00 Telcontar fetchnews[2170]: Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> Oct  8 14:33:00 Telcontar fetchnews[2170]: Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-01-06 17:38:15 Telcontar fetchnews 20808 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-01-06 17:38:15 Telcontar fetchnews 20808 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-04-06 20:54:03 Telcontar fetchnews 20005 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-04-06 20:54:03 Telcontar fetchnews 20005 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-07-06 01:37:07 Telcontar fetchnews 23469 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-07-06 01:37:07 Telcontar fetchnews 23469 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict: opensuse.org.help.howto vs. opensuse.org.help.howto
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 01:38:06 Telcontar fetchnews 14581 - -  Newsgroup name conflict, chose opensuse.org.help.howto

It happens once every three months. About.

Mmmm… the howto group… that’s one I have defined as persistent, do not
purge:

groupexpire opensuse.org.help.howto = -1

That’s the only reference in the entire config to the word “howto”.

Ah, another interesting setting, that causes the 3 month period:

timeout_active determines how many days fetch will wait before re-reading

the whole active file. The default is 90 days.

timeout_active = 365

That is, every three months it tries to get the entire list of groups. I
think. Then it is when it gets that hiccup.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 4, 2011, 5:56am

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:03:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> That is, every three months it tries to get the entire list of groups. I
> think. Then it is when it gets that hiccup.

Looks that way, sounds like a fetchnews bug.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

DenverD · October 4, 2011, 10:01am

On 10/04/2011 05:56 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:03:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Looks that way, sounds like a fetchnews bug.

i don’t have the problem (or i don’t see the problem) when subscribed
to the two following groups…however, i let thunderbird directly
contact the nntp server, and (as far as i know) have no ‘fetchnews’
involved:

opensuse.org.help.howto
opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions

hmmm…i think Carlos has a cron set to download every so often…maybe
try: not stop the cron and instead let thunderbird do that…there is a
place in the setup to “Check for new messages every xx minutes.”

i don’t however see a way to tell it to check for new forum adds every
three months (and, just now i see there have been 11 new groups added
for opensuse.org.de)

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems

robin_listas · October 4, 2011, 12:13pm

On 2011-10-04 10:01, DenverD wrote:
> On 10/04/2011 05:56 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:03:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> Looks that way, sounds like a fetchnews bug.

I’m not sure of that.

> i don’t have the problem (or i don’t see the problem) when subscribed to
> the two following groups…however, i let thunderbird directly contact the
> nntp server, and (as far as i know) have no ‘fetchnews’ involved:

GUI programs are much less verbose on the problems they find. Those
programs have to solve issues silently.

fetchnews (leafnode) is a daemon, has a log, and can be very verbose. On
level 3 verbosity it even writes the entire messages to the log, in full.

> opensuse.org.help.howto
> opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions
>
> hmmm…i think Carlos has a cron set to download every so often…maybe
> try: not stop the cron and instead let thunderbird do that…there is a
> place in the setup to “Check for new messages every xx minutes.”

Correct.

But in this case it is not my cron job, but an internal counter inside
leafnode that makes it query for the entire list of groups when it sees it
has not done that in the last three months.

On the rest of the occasions, it asks only for new groups - see the third
line, and the answer “got 0 new newsgroups” a bit later, for a normal run
today:


> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:04 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  leafnode 1.11.8: verbosity level is 1, debugmode is 1
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:04 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  try_lock(timeout=5), fqdn="Telcontar.valinor"
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:04 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  Last LIST done 33587 seconds ago: NEWGROUPS
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  forums.novell.com: connected to 130.57.5.50:119, reply: 200
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >MODE READER
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  forums.novell.com: 0 articles posted.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >DATE
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <111 20111004085804
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  check_date: forums.novell.com: server time 1317718684, our time 1317718685
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >NEWGROUPS 111004 014305 GMT
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:05 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <231 New newsgroups follow.
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  forums.novell.com: got 0 new newsgroups.
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  forums.novell.com: reading server info from /var/spool/news/leaf.node/forums.novell.com
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >GROUP opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <211 17948 2 17983 opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless: considering articles 17981 - 17983
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >XOVER 17981-17983
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <224 Overview Information Follows
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:06 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >ARTICLE 17981
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:07 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  >ARTICLE 17982

After three months of asking for newgroups on every connection, it instead
asks for the entire list fresh, just in case there was a slippage. And
apparently the server gives the same name twice for one group.

To verify this I would have to increase verbosity on this side and wait 3
months, of clear the counter somehow (and I don’t know where - I just
looked). It could be the timestamp of the active.read file.

Done, I’ll try. …] Yep, it is working.


> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  config: debugmode is 3
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  config: maxage is 0
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  config: postings have max. 500000 bytes
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  config: timeout_long is 60 days
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  config: allow_8bit_headers is 1
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:18 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  Core file size: 67108864
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:21 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  leafnode 1.11.8: verbosity level is 1, debugmode is 3
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:21 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  try_lock(timeout=5), fqdn="Telcontar.valinor"
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:46:21 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  Last LIST done 16112778 seconds ago: LIST
> <7.5> 2011-10-04 11:46:21 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  Active has not been fetched completely in previous run
> <7.5> 2011-10-04 11:46:21 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  or has never been fetched, forcing active fetch.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  forums.novell.com: connected to 130.57.5.50:119, reply: 200
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  >MODE READER
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  forums.novell.com: 0 articles posted.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  >DATE
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <111 20111004094739
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  check_date: forums.novell.com: server time 1317721659, our time 1317721659
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  forums.novell.com: getting all newsgroups (debug: active: nil, forceactive: true)
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  >LIST
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <215 NewsGroups Follow
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <novell.community.brainshare 0000002156 0000000002 y
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:39 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <novell.community.certifications.cla 0000000099 0000000039 y
> ...
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:40 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <opensuse.org.help.howto 0000000497 0000000002 m
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:40 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions 0000002830 0000000002 y
> ...
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:40 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <suse.support.suse-studio 0000000001 0000000002 y
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:40 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <.
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:40 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  >LIST NEWSGROUPS
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <215 NewsGroups Follow
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <215 NewsGroups Follow
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <.
> <7.6> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  forums.novell.com: reading server info from /var/spool/news/leaf.node/forums.novell.com
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <opensuse.org.help.network-internet.wireless 17984
> ...
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <opensuse.org.help.howto 498
> ...
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  <opensuse.org.help.install-boot-login 101011
> <7.7> 2011-10-04 11:47:41 Telcontar fetchnews 22265 - -  < (EOF)

This time there was no error of duplicate group, I see no warning. The only
curious thing is that the howto group has the token ‘m’ instead of ‘y’. No
idea what that means.

And no idea why no duplicate group - either something was changed at
Novell, or it is one of those weird computer glitches that disappear when
you look.

I got another (unrelated) error on the next run, still verbose:


> <7.7> 2011-10-04 10:58:13 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  <------------------------------------------------------------------------
> <7.3> 2011-10-04 10:58:13 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  error: syntax error in reply "------------------------------------------------------------------------"
> <7.4> 2011-10-04 10:58:13 Telcontar fetchnews 20112 - -  Warning: aborting fetch from forums.novell.com due to previous condition.

which I don’t know how important it is. I know that leafnode has some bugs
and is very little maintained.

> i don’t however see a way to tell it to check for new forum adds every
> three months (and, just now i see there have been 11 new groups added for
> opensuse.org.de)

Thunderbird checks groups when you tell it, only. And not sure it would say
anything about a duplicate group.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 4, 2011, 7:59pm

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:13:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> This time there was no error of duplicate group, I see no warning. The
> only curious thing is that the howto group has the token ‘m’ instead of
> ‘y’. No idea what that means.

“m” means it’s a moderated group (posts are held until someone releases
them). “y” means it’s a group that the public can post to.

That might explain the difference, if fetchnews has the local group with
a “y” and the remote group is flagged “m”, it may be failing the match
and generating a false duplicate.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

DenverD · October 4, 2011, 10:45pm

On 10/04/2011 07:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

> That might explain the difference, if fetchnews has the local group with
> a “y” and the remote group is flagged “m”, it may be failing the match
> and generating a false duplicate.

admission: this is beyond my knowledge of the systems in use, however:

wouldn’t fetch mail have received the ‘m’ or ‘y’ from the nntp
server–if so, how could the receiver be wrong? maybe:

if i recall correctly, in days of yore there was but one how-to group in
the realm–anyone and everyone could post to it…

then after a bunch of bad how-tos had been produced it was decided to
have two how-to groups, one for “approved” how-tos and one for submitted
for approval how-tos

i don’t remember what the original was named on the web side, but i
think on the nntp side it was

opensuse.org.help.howto

and allowed both read and write, or ‘y’

but, now we have opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions which is read and
write and the original opensuse.org.help.howto is now read only, or ‘m’

so perhaps somewhere there is a file with the original fora marked
both the original ‘y’ and the now ‘m’…but where that might be i dont
know…maybe on the nntp server, maybe in the gateway, maybe maybe…

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems

hendersj · October 5, 2011, 1:34am

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:45:27 +0000, DenverD wrote:

> On 10/04/2011 07:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> That might explain the difference, if fetchnews has the local group
>> with a “y” and the remote group is flagged “m”, it may be failing the
>> match and generating a false duplicate.
>
> admission: this is beyond my knowledge of the systems in use, however:
>
> wouldn’t fetch mail have received the ‘m’ or ‘y’ from the nntp
> server–if so, how could the receiver be wrong? maybe:
>
> if i recall correctly, in days of yore there was but one how-to group in
> the realm–anyone and everyone could post to it…
>
> then after a bunch of bad how-tos had been produced it was decided to
> have two how-to groups, one for “approved” how-tos and one for submitted
> for approval how-tos
>
> i don’t remember what the original was named on the web side, but i
> think on the nntp side it was
>
> opensuse.org.help.howto
>
> and allowed both read and write, or ‘y’
>
> but, now we have opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions which is read and
> write and the original opensuse.org.help.howto is now read only, or ‘m’
>
> so perhaps somewhere there is a file with the original fora marked
> both the original ‘y’ and the now ‘m’…but where that might be i dont
> know…maybe on the nntp server, maybe in the gateway, maybe maybe…

Nope, the gateway doesn’t know about it, it’s entirely in the NNTP server
(that configuration is). You may be remembering correctly that the group
changed (for the howto group), as I seem to recall as well that it used
to be open for everyone, but ended up being less useful. In reality, it
probably doesn’t make sense to have that group now that we have the CMS
functionality and a post can be promoted to be an article or blog entry.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

robin_listas · October 5, 2011, 3:08am

On 2011-10-04 19:59, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:13:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> This time there was no error of duplicate group, I see no warning. The
>> only curious thing is that the howto group has the token ‘m’ instead of
>> ‘y’. No idea what that means.
>
> “m” means it’s a moderated group (posts are held until someone releases
> them). “y” means it’s a group that the public can post to.

Ah, didn’t know that.

> That might explain the difference, if fetchnews has the local group with
> a “y” and the remote group is flagged “m”, it may be failing the match
> and generating a false duplicate.

Could be.

leafnode stores different info (groupinfo file):

opensuse.org.help.howto 498 3 1278762332 -x-
opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions 2363 3 1278762332 -x-

The first number I think is the number of messages. The 3 I don’t know. The
last one is the same for all groups (or almost, some have different), it
could be a timestamp.

and at least in thunderbird I can attempt to write a message. I didn’t try
to send, though. I could try.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 5, 2011, 5:13am

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:08:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2011-10-04 19:59, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:13:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>
>>> This time there was no error of duplicate group, I see no warning. The
>>> only curious thing is that the howto group has the token ‘m’ instead
>>> of ‘y’. No idea what that means.
>>
>> “m” means it’s a moderated group (posts are held until someone releases
>> them). “y” means it’s a group that the public can post to.
>
> Ah, didn’t know that.

Having spent time administering that particular server & software, it’s
something that I’m pretty familiar with.

> opensuse.org.help.howto 498 3 1278762332 -x-
> opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions 2363 3 1278762332 -x-
>
> The first number I think is the number of messages. The 3 I don’t know.
> The last one is the same for all groups (or almost, some have
> different), it could be a timestamp.

I’d guess the first number is number of messages in the local group, the
second is the first message (as I recall, fetchnews uses a dummy group
and you have to do something (post a message, perhaps) to the dummy group
to trigger it pulling the initial feed.

The last number is almost certainly a timestamp of some sort, probably
indicating the last time the group was polled from the upstream server.

> and at least in thunderbird I can attempt to write a message. I didn’t
> try to send, though. I could try.

It probably (and in fact, should) be rejected, though from your end it
probably will look like it would go through.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

robin_listas · October 5, 2011, 10:28am

On 2011-10-05 05:13, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:08:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

>> Ah, didn’t know that.
>
> Having spent time administering that particular server & software, it’s
> something that I’m pretty familiar with.

Understandable

>> opensuse.org.help.howto 498 3 1278762332 -x-
>> opensuse.org.help.howto.submissions 2363 3 1278762332 -x-
>>
>> The first number I think is the number of messages. The 3 I don’t know.
>> The last one is the same for all groups (or almost, some have
>> different), it could be a timestamp.
>
> I’d guess the first number is number of messages in the local group,

Yep.

> the
> second is the first message (as I recall, fetchnews uses a dummy group
> and you have to do something (post a message, perhaps) to the dummy group
> to trigger it pulling the initial feed.

When you try to view messages the first time it takes notice and displays a
dummy one saying that the group messages will be pulled next round. No
posting necessary, probably not even possible. Never tried.

> The last number is almost certainly a timestamp of some sort, probably
> indicating the last time the group was polled from the upstream server.

Yep.

>> and at least in thunderbird I can attempt to write a message. I didn’t
>> try to send, though. I could try.
>
> It probably (and in fact, should) be rejected, though from your end it
> probably will look like it would go through.

If it is a moderated group, it would be sent, right. Normally you would get
a message back warning that the message awaits moderation (dunno if it is
configured that way). Yes, I confused the setting with a R/O group.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 5, 2011, 5:06pm

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:28:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

>> the
>> second is the first message (as I recall, fetchnews uses a dummy group
>> and you have to do something (post a message, perhaps) to the dummy
>> group to trigger it pulling the initial feed.
>
> When you try to view messages the first time it takes notice and
> displays a dummy one saying that the group messages will be pulled next
> round. No posting necessary, probably not even possible. Never tried.

It’s been a while since I tried that software, but I thought it had an
option to pull the list of groups and then you did something to tell it
to actually subscribe to the group. Maybe it’s changed since I last
played with it.

>>> and at least in thunderbird I can attempt to write a message. I didn’t
>>> try to send, though. I could try.
>>
>> It probably (and in fact, should) be rejected, though from your end
>> it probably will look like it would go through.
>
> If it is a moderated group, it would be sent, right. Normally you would
> get a message back warning that the message awaits moderation (dunno if
> it is configured that way). Yes, I confused the setting with a R/O
> group.

That’s the way moderated groups are supposed to work - on the backend, an
e-mail is generated to the assigned moderators (NNTP moderator, that is)
who then has to do something that involves a special header that lets the
post get posted.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

robin_listas · October 6, 2011, 4:28am

On 2011-10-05 17:06, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:28:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> It’s been a while since I tried that software, but I thought it had an
> option to pull the list of groups and then you did something to tell it
> to actually subscribe to the group. Maybe it’s changed since I last
> played with it.

Yes, first you add the server in the configuration. Then when you run
fetchnews it only fetches the list of groups. When you connect to localhost
with a client, you see that list of groups, but all are empty of messages.
If you try to read one, you get the dummy message from the local server,
and it triggers a real fetch the next time you run fetchnews. Then you see
them locally.

Two rounds necessary.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

hendersj · October 6, 2011, 4:44am

On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:28:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2011-10-05 17:06, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:28:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> It’s been a while since I tried that software, but I thought it had an
>> option to pull the list of groups and then you did something to tell it
>> to actually subscribe to the group. Maybe it’s changed since I last
>> played with it.
>
> Yes, first you add the server in the configuration. Then when you run
> fetchnews it only fetches the list of groups. When you connect to
> localhost with a client, you see that list of groups, but all are empty
> of messages. If you try to read one, you get the dummy message from the
> local server, and it triggers a real fetch the next time you run
> fetchnews. Then you see them locally.
>
> Two rounds necessary.

Ah, that explains it. That is what I recall now that you mention it.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C